TURKISH PM’S ARMENIAN ADVISER STEPS DOWN AFTER GENOCIDE REMARK
i24 News, Israel
April 17 2015
Turkey accused of belittling the centenary of the Armenian genocide
by advancing its Gallipoli commemorations
The first ever member of Turkey’s Armenian community to hold the
post of senior adviser to the Turkish prime minister has retired,
an official said on Thursday, after he described the mass killings
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as a “genocide.”
The official, who asked not to be named, denied any link between
the departure of Etyen Mahcupyan and the looming 100th anniversary
on April 24 of the start of the 1915 killings of Armenians, which
Yerevan regards as genocide.
Mahcupyan, 65, “has retired on the grounds of age,” the official said,
noting this was the age limit for all Turkish civil servants.
Mahcupyan, who was appointed last year as senior adviser to Ahmet
Davutoglu, infuriated some within the ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP) this week when he qualified the mass killings of Armenians
as a “genocide.”
“If accepting that what happened in Bosnia and Africa were genocides,
it is impossible not to call what happened to Armenians in 1915
genocide too,” Mahcupyan said in an interview published this week.
Turkey, which has always rejected the term genocide, has taken a
defiant line amid growing tensions over the characterization of the
tragedy ahead of the 100th anniversary.
The European Parliament on Wednesday urged Turkey to use the centenary
of Ottoman-era massacres to “recognize the Armenian genocide” and
help promote reconciliation between the two peoples.
The use of the word “genocide” by Pope Francis on Sunday infuriated
Ankara and prompted Davutoglu to accuse the pontiff of “blackmail”
against Turkey.
In an interview with AFP in December, Mahcupyan said 2015 would be a
“tough year” because of the anniversary.
He said the priority for the future should be establishing relations
with Armenia as well as the millions-strong diaspora, many of whom
harbor a deep hatred of Turkey.
Gallipoli commemorations
Meanwhile Turkey has been accused of belittling the upcoming centenary
of the Armenian genocide by advancing its Gallipoli commemorations
to the same day.
The ceremonies, to be marked on April 24, coincide exactly with the
100th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of
the Ottoman Empire.
“This is a very indecent political manoeuvre,” Ohannes Kılıcdagı, a
researcher and writer for Agos, an Armenian weekly, told the Guardian.
“It’s cheap politics to try to dissolve the pressure on Turkey in
the year of the centennial by organizing this event.
“Everybody knows that the two memorials around Gallipoli have been
held on 18 March and 25 April every year.”
Nazar Buyum, an Armenian columnist and writer, said: “It’s not just
Gallipoli…Someone also had the audacity to suggest the organization
of a Gallipoli memorial concert in an Armenian church in Istanbul for
24 April. The government does everything to overshadow the centennial
of the genocide this year.”
Erdogan has invited his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sarkisian, to
attend commemoration ceremonies in Turkey.
The Gallipoli campaign was one of the most famous battles of World
War I when Ottoman troops resisted an invading Allied Forceseeking
control of the Gallipoli peninsula on the Dardanelles strait.
The war was also where the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, made his name as a heroic military leader.
“We fought as a kind together. That’s why we have invited Sarkisian,”
a government official was quoted as saying by local media, referring
to the presence of Armenian minorities alongside Turks and other
peoples in the Ottoman army.
Britain, Australia and New Zealand reportedly want a flamboyant
ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landings at
Gallipoli.
Local media said the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand,
as well as Britain’s Prince Charles, with his sons, are expected to
attend the ceremonies.
An invitation has also been sent to German President Joachim Gauck.
Some 10,500 people from Australia and New Zealand who were selected
after a ballot are due to take part in a dawn service a day later on
April 25, an Australian embassy official told AFP.
War of words as Armenians fight for genocide recognition a century on
Mass killings? Mutual bloodletting? Genocide? The hundreds of thousands
of dead have been silent for a century, but generations on, Armenians
are still battling to get the World War I slaying of their ancestors
recognized as a genocide.As Armenians around the world gear up to
mark 100 years since the start of the slaughter on April 24, the
struggle to get the world — and above all Turkey — to use the term
“genocide” remains deeply divisive.
To Armenians the word represents definitive proof of their ancestors’
horrific suffering at the hands of the Ottoman empire during World
War I, but for Ankara the violence was perpetrated by all sides and
describing the events as “genocide” is a red line it cannot cross.
Trapped somewhere in the middle is an international community, notably
the United States, under pressure from Armenia’s large diaspora but
worried about upsetting a rising Turkey.
“For Armenians the word ‘genocide’ encapsulates what happened to their
forefathers in 1915 and also elevates the Armenian experience to the
level of that of the Holocaust,” said Thomas De Waal, an expert on the
region at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“Precisely for the same reason, official Turkey has always rejected
the term, on the grounds that it equates the behaviour of their
grandparents with the Nazis and also out of paranoia that the
application of the word could lead to legal claims against Turkey.”
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically
killed between 1915 and 1917 by Ottoman authorities as their empire —
the precursor to modern Turkey — crumbled.
Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians
and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against
their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
– Rise of a movement –
For some 30 years after the killings no one thought of calling the
massacres of Armenians a genocide — because the term itself did
not exist.
Up until then, Armenians referred to the tragedy simply as the “Great
Catastrophe” — or Medz Yeghern in Armenian.
Coined only in 1944 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the word
“genocide” became codified in law in the 1948 United Nations Genocide
Convention, which defined it as “acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
The start of the clamor for recognition came later in 1965 as Armenians
around the world marked the 50th anniversary of the killings.
In Armenia itself — then a republic of the Soviet Union —
discussing any official acceptance of the genocide was a taboo but
an unprecedented protest that saw some 100,000 take to the streets
forced the Kremlin to start reevaluating its position.
“It was like a genie was let out of the bottle,” Rolan Manucharyan,
a physics professor who took part in the 1965 demonstration in downtown
Yerevan, told AFP.
The 1980s then saw an surge in the international movement for
recognition, mainly fuelled by the Armenian community in the US,
with outbursts of violence as radical groups killed Turkish officials.
So far, Armenia says 22 countries — prominently France, with its
large Armenian community — have recognized the genocide.
Last Sunday Pope Francis became the latest international figure to
wade into the controversy as he used the term “genocide” to describe
the killings, sparking a furious reaction from Turkey.
For American presidents the issue has always been a thorny one.
Ronald Reagan used the term in the early 1980s but since then the
commanders-in-chief in Washington have shied away.
Barack Obama — who pledged before he won the presidency to recognize
the genocide — has sidestepped the contentious term by using the
Armenian term Medz Yeghern.
– Return of land? –
The fallout from the massacres still shapes the region with official
ties between Turkey and Armenia frozen.
Part of the fear in Ankara over the push for genocide recognition is
that it could see Armenians lay claim to land in eastern Turkey.
“The term ‘genocide’ is not just an academic concept but also a
legal one. It means that a crime was committed and suggests that
there should be punishment and compensation,” said Ruben Safrastyan,
the director of Yerevan’s Institute of Oriental Studies.
At present Armenia has no official territorial claims against Turkey
but in 2013 prosecutor general Aghvan Hovsepyan sparked fury in Ankara
by saying Armenians should have their “lost territories” returned.
But despite the dreams of some Armenians to reclaim their land,
analysts said few outside the community seriously think there will
be any move to retake the land.
“It would be very difficult for any Armenian political leader to say
that Armenia has no territorial claims to Turkey,” Svante Cornell
from the Washington-based Central Asia-Caucasus Institute told AFP.
“But Western politicians don’t take seriously” the possibility of a
land dispute.
As the 100th anniversary of the killings approaches, the struggle
for official recognition is as intense as ever.
And the burden of what happened — and getting recognition for it —
still weighs heavily over Armenia and Armenians around the world.
“The pain forces us to constantly look back into the past,” said
Armenian author Ruben Hovsepyan, whose mother fled the killings as
a child.
“It does not allow us to fully build our future as we use up so
much national energy and potential on forcing Turkey to recognize
the genocide.”
(AFP)